Waiting for the Gift

Acts 1:4-11

When I read a Christian magazine, I am inundated by advertisements urging me to come to one conference or another. A week’s conference on pastoral mentoring with Jack Hayford. The Dynamics of Scripture for Christian Spiritual Transformation with Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. The Priceless Legacy of Cross-Centered Preaching with John MacArthur, John Piper and R.C. Sproul. Regent College in Vancouver, Canada has summer courses taught by Eugene Peterson, Mark Noll, and Gordon Fee.

I would love to go to some of these conferences and be stretched and encouraged by these teachers but if I was not limited by time and I could attend any course I wanted, the one I would most want to attend is the one Jesus gave to his disciples in the forty days between his resurrection and ascension.

In Luke’s two-part book, he concludes the first half and begins the second half with a summary of this teaching time.

Luke 24
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Acts 1
After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

That must have been an incredible forty days.

At the end of those forty days, what do you think the disciples felt like doing? I know that when I go to a good conference, an inspiring conference, a conference where I have been stretched and fed, that what I want to do is go out and put into practice the things I have learned. In fact that is what conference leaders challenge those who attend to do. They urge the participants in the conference to go out there and be salt and light to their neighbors, to get involved in their community and be an influence for Christ or to put what has been learned into practice in the local church as you preach, teach and lead small groups.

But that is not what Jesus told them to do.
“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

The disciples finished the course Jesus taught and he told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait.
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait.

Who were the participants in the course Jesus taught? The twelve disciples minus Judas were there. The other disciples that made up the seventy-two were there. The women who followed Jesus were there. Other disciples of Jesus were there. Paul said in his first letter to the church in Corinth that Jesus appeared to five hundred of the brothers. Later in the first chapter of Acts, Luke says the brothers numbered about one hundred twenty.

Of this group of disciples, at least eighty-three had ministry experience on their own. Jesus sent out the twelve closest disciples to him and then later sent out thirty-six pairs of two disciples to minister in his name. Remember what they experienced?

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,

Later he gave similar instructions to seventy-two others he appointed and when they returned
The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

At least eighty-three of the several hundred disciples Jesus taught for forty days had been out on their own, healing in the name of Jesus and casting out demons in the name of Jesus. After the tumultuous events surrounding the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, they had been given new hope when Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ. They had been given understanding of the Scriptures, understanding in a new way the Prophets and Moses and the Law.

And now they were ready to go out in the name of Jesus and do what they had done before, but this time with a greater understanding of who Jesus was.

But Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem.

Why wait? They were well trained. They had traveled with Jesus for three years. He had taken them through a process in which he ministered to others and they watched him. Then he encouraged them to minister as he watched. And finally he sent them out to minister on their own as he supported them from a distance.

They were well educated. He had taught them for three years as they traveled from place to place. After his resurrection, he had taught them in an intensive course and they understood many of the things he had taught over the past three years in a new and more complete way.

They were trained, educated, energized. What were they waiting for? Jesus said,
“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus told them to wait because they were not yet ready to go out and minister in his name. Their theological training was complete. Their practical ministry training was complete. But they were still missing something. And what they were missing is revealed in the question they asked Jesus after he told them in a few days they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

There are a lot of questions they could have asked him. “What will it be like to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?” “How will we know that we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit?” “Is there anything we should be doing in the days we are waiting to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?” “How will things be different after we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit?” “When John baptized us with water, we got wet. What will we feel when we are baptized by the Holy Spirit?”

There are a lot of questions they could have asked, but this is the one that is recorded that they asked.
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The disciples still don’t get it. They continue to be clueless. Time after time when Jesus taught them, they were not able to understand. After three years with Jesus, after their own experience of casting out demons and healing in the name of Jesus, after the events of Jesus’ crucifixion and then resurrection, after the forty days of instruction, the disciples still don’t get it. They are still thinking of Israel and an earthly kingdom in which the Roman occupiers would be kicked out and Israel would regain the power and stature it held under Kings David and Solomon.

That’s why Jesus told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit because without the Holy Spirit, there is no real spiritual understanding. And it is clear that the coming of the Holy Spirit is what made a difference because after this, as you read through Acts and the letters of the disciples, it is clear that they finally did get it. After they were baptized with the Holy Spirit, they finally understood that Jesus was talking of a spiritual reality that would be fully realized only in heaven.

We know this because of our own experience. I went to church all my life and I have vivid memories of sitting in a pew being bored, singing hymns that put me to sleep, hearing Scripture read that meant nothing to me. I can remember being incredibly tired and wanting desperately to be somewhere else.

For one year when I was 11, I sat in the balcony with the pastor’s son and he would bring in a big bag of gum he got from a bubblegum machine. He wanted the toy in the middle of the glass globe so would put in coin after coin until he finally got the toy. So we would chew big handfuls of gum and read comic books while his father led the service. Other than that year, I would characterize my years in church as uninteresting, tedious and boring.

But then when I became a Christian in college, I went to Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts and I still remember that first Sunday. I had given my life to Christ just a week earlier. We were singing one of the hymns I had known all my life and I was amazed at how wonderful this hymn was. I remember being amazed that this hymn that had bored me all my life had all of a sudden become so meaningful and thrilling to me. The words meant something to me. They spoke of my recent experience.

The Scriptures I had read because I had to at one time or another, I now read with great interest, taking notes, underlining passages and meeting with others to discuss what I was learning.

That is the difference the Holy Spirit made in my life. All of a sudden it made sense, it clicked, the light went on.

This experience is what Paul wrote about in his letter, I Corinthians 2
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us….  14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Only with the Holy Spirit do the truths of Christ come alive in us.

John Wesley, who was a leader in the great awakening in the 18th century, was ordained as a minister and served as a missionary to the colony of Georgia in North America before he returned by boat to England. Shortly after his return, he was in a meeting where the preface to Martin Luther’s commentary on Romans was being read when he felt his heart “strangely warmed” and his life changed.

He was a minister and missionary before he had a personal relationship with the God he preached.

There are many who are religious, who know a lot about the Bible and who are experts in theology and who even serve in the church as pastors but who are missing the point because they are not yet Christians and filled with the Holy Spirit.

You may have been brought up in the church and you may know a lot about Jesus and the Bible, but I want you to know there is a huge difference between going to church and having a living relationship with God through Jesus.

If you suspect this might be your situation, I encourage you to hear the word of Jesus to his disciples,
wait for the gift my Father promised

Why did Jesus make them wait? They waited ten days for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. Why ten days? Why not an hour?

God has his purposes at which we can only guess. Why is it that some come to faith in Christ when they are very young and others live a long life before opening their heart to Jesus? I don’t know. I grieve sometimes when I think of the people I hurt and abused before I became a Christian. I wish I had been able to love those people instead of abusing them. But God has his plan.

I waited 20 years for the Holy Spirit to come upon me. Noreen Maxwell waited 84 years. I don’t know how many years you have waited but perhaps today is the day for you to open your heart and receive the gift promised by the Father.

As did John Wesley in the meeting in Aldersgate in London, hear the word of God for you today, tune out the rest of the sermon, and be strangely warmed as you open your heart to Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Right now, in your pew, close your eyes and pray to God, asking him to come into your life and fill you with the Holy Spirit.

For the rest of us, let’s continue.

The disciples asked Jesus
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
And what was his response?

He might have said, “Don’t you remember when we were sitting on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple and you asked me the same question? What did I tell you then? Weren’t you paying attention? You think of an earthly kingdom but I am talking about a heavenly kingdom.

What is interesting to me is that while he reminds them once again that times and dates are in the hand of the Father and not for us to know, he does not seem to address their question at all.

The answer to their question about when the kingdom of Israel will be restored is answered by a verse that is the heart of the book of Acts. All of Acts flows from this verse.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The answer Jesus gives to his disciples is that they are not to know the time or date but that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they will be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem and to the ends of the earth.

The disciples wanted to know when they would be able to enjoy the fruit of their relationship to Christ. They wanted to know when the Romans would be kicked out and they would be at the center of the new ruling group. They wanted to know how they would materially benefit from the establishment of Christ’s kingdom. And the response was that they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit and serve Jesus by being his witnesses. The disciples question was how will things benefit us and Jesus’ response was to let them know how they would serve him.

I read a book yesterday about Brother Yun from China who is known as “The Heavenly Man”. It is an extraordinary book about the life and ministry of a man who experienced such deep suffering. Think of the suffering of Paul and then add sadism and modern technology like electricity to the possible ways to be beaten and tortured. Brother Yun experienced great suffering but he also experienced great power in his life.

At the beginning of his Christian life, when he was just 16 years old, he miraculously received a copy of a Bible and read all the way through, having to look up many of the more complicated Chinese characters in a dictionary. After reading through the Bible, he began memorizing a chapter a day. In 28 days he memorized the Gospel of Matthew. He read again Mark, Luke and John and began to memorize Acts.

When he came to this verse in chapter 1,
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
he meditated on it and prayed that he would have this experience for himself. The power of the Holy Spirit he received into his life that day is what enabled him time and time again to preach the Gospel and endure the suffering that came to him.

I was very convicted as I read this book. I read about his devotion to God and throwing away all comforts for the privilege of preaching the Gospel to people and I began to think about how much I like a comfortable lifestyle.

I see in my own life my attachment to what the world has to offer. I may not be asking Jesus when his kingdom will come and kick out the Roman occupiers, but in the choices I make, I am asking Jesus to give me the things I need to make my life more comfortable.

The work of God in our lives is not so we can be comfortable. The work of God in our lives is to make us more singly devoted to him and willing to serve him in any way he asks us to serve.

Do you understand this? Jesus did not die on the cross so you could be happy and comfortable in this world. Because God loves you, he is pleased when you enjoy what this world has to offer. But that is not why he died for you.

Jesus died so you could have life lived in eternity with him. As one of his followers he calls you to serve him, to do the work he himself did when he was on earth. The question for a Christian is not how can I get more of what the world has to offer, the question is where does Jesus want me to serve him.

You may get married and you may not. You may have children and you may not. You may live in a comfortable house and you may not. You may go through life and never be beaten or tortured because of your faith but it may come that you have the privilege of sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

The disciples asked when the kingdom of Israel would be restored. You might ask when you will receive what it is you long for in this life and to any such question, the response of Jesus is
“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.  8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount,
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Jesus knows what you need. And what you most need is not food, drink, clothing, or anything else the world can offer to you. What you most need is Jesus. It is this realization that allowed Brother Yun to suffer so much. He understood what was most important.

So seek first his kingdom. Wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon you with power so you can be his witness to the world. Ask God to give you a fresh and powerful experience of the Holy Spirit so you can serve him.

At the end of today’s text we read about Jesus’ homecoming journey. I wonder what kind of welcome Jesus received when he returned home? That must have been some celebration. But the text today tells us nothing of that. What it does tell is the scene from the perspective of the disciples.
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Jesus has ascended and he will return. While we long for his return and desire to be united with him in heaven, our feet are still on the ground and as long as our feet are still on the ground, we have a task to do which is to serve Jesus and be his witnesses.

Come to Jesus and ask him to fill you with the Holy Spirit and be Jesus’ witness in Rabat, in Morocco, in North Africa and to the ends of the earth.